Israel accused of war crimes over 12-hour assault on Gaza village

Photo of Israel’s use of White Phosphorous in Gaza in the January 2009 attack. Note that there is little smoke cover generated, and LOTS of fires. This is White Phosphorous, a chemical weapon, being used in a clearly residential area, to wound, main, kill and set fire to the place, in other words, to ethnically cleanse it and, and in the process commit genocide. All war crimes. Source: World Press Network

The denunciations over what happened in Khuza’a follow repeated claims of possible human rights violations from the Red Cross, the UN and human rights organisations.

The Israeli army announced yesterday that it was investigating “at the highest level” five other attacks against civilians in Gaza, involving two UN facilities and a hospital. It added that in all cases initial investigations suggested soldiers were responding to fire. “These claims of war crimes are not supported by the slightest piece of evidence,” said Yigal Palmor, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.

Concern over what occurred in the village of Khuza’a in the early hours of Tuesday was first raised by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Although an Israeli military spokesman said he had “no information that this alleged incident took place”, witness statements collected by the Observer are consistent and match testimony gathered by B’Tselem.

There is also strong visible evidence that Khuza’a came under a sustained attack from tanks and bulldozers that smashed some buildings to pieces.

Pictures taken by photographer Bruno Stevens in the aftermath show heavy damage – and still burning phosphorus. “What I can tell you is that many, many houses were shelled and that they used white phosphorus,” said Stevens yesterday, one of the first western journalists to get into Gaza. “It appears to have been indiscriminate.” Stevens added that homes near the village that had not been hit by shell fire had been set on fire.

The village of Khuza’a is around 500 metres from the border with Israel. According to B’Tselem, its field researcher in Gaza was contacted last Tuesday by resident Munir Shafik al-Najar, who said that Israeli bulldozers had begun destroying homes at 2.30am.

When Rawhiya al-Najar, aged 50, stepped out of her house waving a white flag, so that the rest of the family could leave the house, she was allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers nearby.

The second alleged incident was on Tuesday afternoon, when Israeli troops ordered 30 residents to leave their homes and walk to a school in the village centre. After travelling 20 metres, troops fired on the group, allegedly killing three.

Further detailed accounts of what occurred were supplied in interviews given to a Palestinian researcher who has been working for the Observer, following the decision by Israel to ban foreign media from the Gaza Strip. Iman al-Najar, 29, said she watched as bulldozers started to destroy neighbours’ homes and saw terrified villagers flee from their houses as masonry collapsed.

“By 6am the tanks and bulldozers had reached our house,” Iman recalled. “We went on the roofs and tried to show we were civilians with white flags. Everyone was carrying a white flag. We told them we are civilians. We don’t have any weapons. The soldiers started to destroy the houses even if the people were in them.” Describing the death of Rawhiya, Iman says they were ordered by Israeli soldiers to move to the centre of the town. As they did, Israeli troops opened fire. Rawhiya was at the front of the group, says Iman.

Marwan Abu Raeda, 40, a paramedic working for the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said: “At 8am we received a phone call from Khuza’a. They told us about the injured woman. I went immediately. I was 60 or 70 metres away from the injured woman when the Israeli forces started to shoot at me.” As he drove into another street, he came under fire again. Twelve hours later, when Rawhiya was finally reached, she was dead.

Iman said she ended up in an area of rubble where a large group of people had sought cover in a deep hole among the debris of demolished houses. It is then, she says, that bulldozers began to push the rubble from each side. “They wanted to bury us alive,” she said.

Sunday 18 January 2009
Fida Qishta in Khuza’a and Peter Beaumont in London

Growing outrage at the killings in Gaza

The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.

Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides… against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.

As members of the Jewish Black Asian Forum, we are distressed and outraged at the pointless loss of life and humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The values we share, and the stories of loss and exclusion we bring to our discussions , drive us to speak out together. As members of British communities closely connected to Israel and Palestine, we call on Israel to immediately end its use of military force in Gaza and on Hamas to cease firing rockets into Israel. Our government, together with other governments and international actors, must engage with the authorities in Israel, Palestine and Gaza to help facilitate a lasting peace in the region and an end to the occupation.Tanaka Loha, Antony Lerman, Geoffrey Bindman, Francesca Klug, June Jacobs, Imam Sajid, Arlington Trotman, Lincoln Crawford, Mumtaz Rahim, Simon Wooley

Jasa Almuli’s claims (Letters, 15 January) that Israel has accepted a Palestinian state and that the obstacle to peace is Hamas’s refusal to recognise the state of Israel are false. Israel’s response to every offer of a viable two-state solution has been to expand the settlements, as during the Oslo “peace” process. On the other hand, the political leadership of Hamas has many times said that it would accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and has offered a long-term truce on that basis. This offer was repeated by the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, on 8 November 2008 to a group of 11 European parliamentarians, including Clare Short. He denied that Hamas was seeking to destroy the state of Israel. “Our conflict is not with the Jews; our problem is with the occupation,” he said. Israel, however, just as it rejected Hamas’s ceasefire offer of 23 December, rejects all negotiation with Hamas’s political leadership and prefers to try to smash its military wing instead. Hamas does not have to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state before peace can be negotiated any more than Sinn Féin had to accept Northern Ireland as part of the UK before negotiating a peace there.Leon Rosselson
Wembley Park, Middlesex

At last the west is coming clean. Palestinians are freedom fighters, not terrorists, who have suffered 60 years of injustice inflicted by the real axis of evil, Israel and the US. The murderous attack on Gaza is an insane attempt at ethnic cleansing before Obama takes over.Eva Figes
London

Iranian military aid to Hamas has been steady and vital to Hamas since its coup of July 2007. The movement has been equipped with dozens of Iranian Fajr-3 missiles – the longest-range ordnance it is thought to possess. The 122mm Grad rockets it has been firing at Israel are in its possession because of the Iranian connection. Like Hezbollah, Hamas is an Iranian proxy. And just as in 2006, Iran was instrumental in inciting the current war. Israel’s fight is a fight for western values of secular democracy and human rights against those that would unleash a medieval theocracy upon us all.Chris Gale
Chippenham, Wiltshire